Simply put Google rankings are where your website appears in the list of sites when someone enters a search term into Google. In answer to the question ‘How important are they?’ I’ll ask you the question of ‘How often do you click to page two on a Google search?’ Exactly.
Getting your webpage to the first page of Google searches is the optimum goal for many businesses. The higher the ranking, the more website clicks, the more clicks the more opportunity you have for conversions.
There is a collection of reasons why it’s important to have good Google Rankings:
- Increases the authenticity of your business
- Increases your organic reach
- Get 10 times more website traffic
- Reduce advertising costs
Okay, you’re starting to understand the importance of getting your webpage up there, but now the question is, how do you do that?
To achieve this, it’s not a straightforward answer. It’s also not something that can be completed in a couple of steps. It is an ongoing process and strategy that must be followed over the long-term.
First, it is probably worth understanding how Google ranks sites.
Google Search
When a user enters a query, Google searches the index for pages that match this term and provide the user with the results believed to be most relevant.
Crawling and Indexing
This is a process completed by Google that can take days or even months. This is the case for websites and when you upload new content or pages. How long this takes is determined by the age of your domain and its authority. If you have a high volume of traffic, then you will have more domain authority.
Step One – Crawling
This step involves Google searching for new pages and adding them to the list of its known web pages. Google can discover these in a few different ways. It can find the site via a link from a known page onto a new page or it can be found when the website owner submits a sitemap. If you’re using a managed web host this may tell Google that new pages have been made. Once the page has been discovered, Google then crawls this to find out what’s on it.
The better Google understands your site, the better it will rank.
Step Two – Indexing
Once your page has been discovered, the second step is for Google to understand exactly what the page is about. This step involves analysing the content on the page, images, videos etc. The information is then stored in the Google Index.
Step Three – Serving (and ranking)
Google’s aim is to provide the best user experience. It does that by determining the most relevant sites to the users search terms/ queries. It will consider factors such as the user’s location and the device they are using.
Now, let us investigate how you can improve the ranking of your website. Unfortunately, there is no magic button that can achieve this immediately. It will take dedication, persistence and creativity. Not only that, but you also need to stay up to date with constantly changing nature of the algorithm.
SEO
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Create Content
You probably hear it all the time: you need a blog. While that is true, posting out random content isn’t going to be effective. You need to first identify your target keywords for the content. Think about what questions you’re answering. What are your target customers asking in their searches?
Create your content in answer to those questions. But don’t just use blog posts. Post videos, images, infographics and downloadable content.
By creating interesting, engaging and shareable content you will naturally invite backlinks onto your webpage. These additional links on other websites will drive organic traffic to your site.
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Use Keywords
Once you have completed your keyword research, ensure this is used in the H1 heading of your blogs/ content, any title tags and alt tags. The key words for each page/ piece of content should be relevant to the content that is on that page or within that blog.
For example, rather than adding the title tag of ‘Home’ for your homepage, consider using something that reflects the product or service you offer.
Don’t overuse keywords. A keyword should only appear around 5 times in a blog post. Otherwise, you risk being considered as a spammy website or worse, trying to trick the algorithm.
Other steps you can take to improving your page ranking:
- Check the speed of your website
- Ensure it is optimised for mobile devices
- Evaluate the user experience of your website
Would you like a site evaluation and tips to improve your page ranking? Drop us a message.